Pathways
How languages change — directionally and recurrently
Pathway Cycles & Pathways
How does negation rebuild itself over time?
A recurrent diachronic pattern: a simple preverbal negator weakens, gets reinforced by an extra element (often a minimizer like “step” or “thing”), the reinforcement is reanalysed as the real negator, the old marker fades, and the new negator may itself start weakening — restarting the cycle.
Jespersen's Cycle →
Pathway Sound change
How does /p/ disappear?
A sound-change pathway catalogue tracking the disappearance of /p/ across the world's languages.
The Graveyard of /p/ ↗